Friday, 2 October 2009

As you may have noticed, the European Parliament has seen the birth of a new political group right of the EPP after this year's elections.

Fellow euroblogger Jon Worth landed a beautiful coup showing the lack of professionalism of this new formation that includes the British Tories (highlights by me, one link added):

"The new group took the name European Conservatives and Reformists (a contradiction in terms even in the name) but no-one thought to register any domain name for the new group before its establishment. So on 22nd June I had a look around to see what I could find – ecrg.info was still available and I purchased it and registered it with Google.

Now more than 3 months on there is still no official ECR Group website as far as I can see, and the single page of my website has risen slowly up the Google results, so much so that I’m starting to get mails via the website from all sorts of organisations asking for information about the ECR’s MEPs and positions and even asking for speakers for conferences. I’ve now politely e-mailed all of these people informing them that they are victims of cybersquatting and asking the valid question:

[H]ow can any political organisation that has gone three months without a web presence be taken at all seriously?"

A pertinent question asked, not least since there have been doubts from the beginning whether the group would be viable at all. And at least on the net - if they don't have a website hidden somewhere where no one finds them - the group seems non-existent.

But maybe they don't care, and non-visibility is part of the Conservative-Reformist strategy? - Only time will tell...